


Purple Prose

by Penknife



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Figging, Finding Someone's Lovingly-Curated Porn Collection, M/M, punishment kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-05 02:11:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20481143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: Humans have all kinds of interesting ideas about what to do in bed. And they write books about them.





	Purple Prose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BiffElderberry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiffElderberry/gifts).

Later, Crowley found the story about Gabriel's visit to Aziraphale's shop and its back room full of "pornography" highly entertaining.

"It's just as well that they didn't really look at the books," Aziraphale said.

"It might have bored them until they went away," Crowley said. "No offense, I'm not saying that books in general are boring, only that your collection of interesting Biblical printer's errors is only interesting from a certain very angelic point of view."

"I meant the other books," Aziraphale said.

"You mean the books of prophecy? All right, that’s a little dodgier, thou-shalt-not-suffer-a-witch and all that, but since the authors are all dead already—"

Aziraphale looked as if he regretted beginning this conversation already. "Not _those_ books."

Crowley thought about saying that surely books intended to inspire lust weren't a very angelic thing to collect, and then considered the likelihood of the other books in Aziraphale's collection to inspire gluttony, general greed, and the very specific sin of coveting other people's first editions.

"I'm sure there's nothing that would have bothered them," he said, and resolved to search the place the next time he was there and Aziraphale was out.

He had the opportunity on a long rainy Monday when Aziraphale had gone out to shop for the sort of necessities that usually appeared in Crowley's flat without the need to order them. He pieced his way carefully among the Bibles, which made his fingers itch, passed over books of prophecy as unlikely to tell him anything about the future at this point that he wanted to know, and eventually unearthed what he was looking for in a rather shadowy corner.

"I read your books," he said when Aziraphale got back.

"Did you?" Aziraphale asked, so innocently that it dawned on Crowley that it was possible they were playing some sort of game, and he wasn't certain that he knew the rules.

"Not all of them," he said. He'd begun with _Fanny Hill_, spent some time with the wildly enthusiastic efforts of the Victorian era, and knocked off sometime around when it all became experimental and probably a metaphor for something. He didn't feel he had the perseverance to make it through pornography that didn't use punctuation.

"They're literature, mind you," Aziraphale said, as if he'd made some accusation, which it was possible Crowley was now meant to work out and supply in reverse.

"Not very edifying, are they?"

"On the contrary, they provide a valuable window into certain facets of human experience."

"Sex?" Crowley tried. "We know all about that, don't we? We've even been doing it." They had, initially fueled by relief that the world wasn't ending, and then out of mutual appreciation for having found an extremely satisfying way of passing the time.

"I meant lust," Aziraphale said.

"I know all about that, too. It's when you want to do things that you shouldn't do, so you spend a lot of time doing them in your head and pretend that's better."

"I don't think it's about whether they're right or wrong," Aziraphale said. "It's about creating a sense of anticipation."

"So you read about things that you want to do, but you can't actually do them, and that makes it better when you eventually do?"

"More interesting," Aziraphale said. Crowley wondered if it was his imagination that Aziraphale was coloring slightly. "Possibly."

"So if I were to, say, open one of the books over here on this shelf—"

"Crowley, no, you shouldn't," Aziraphale said, entirely unconvincingly.'

"—and assume that any page where it falls open is one where someone, I'm naming no names here, has had it open before—"

"Quite an assumption."

"Falls open quite naturally, doesn't it? Let's have a look, then—"

"_That_ particular facet of the human experience," Aziraphale said, as if he'd just located something peculiar that he'd mislaid and that he now felt needed explanation. "

"Well, I know all about punishing people, I'm a demon," Crowley said, although he'd never actually had occasion to use a freshly-peeled ginger root for unnatural purposes. "But I'm not volunteering to be punished in an interestingly weird way just for the sake of relieving your sense of anticipation."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Aziraphale said. "You wouldn't like that at all."

"Not so much," Crowley agreed.

"And I certainly wouldn't want you to do anything you disliked, but if you ever feel so moved …"

Crowley wasn't certain how he felt at that moment, a sensation he wasn't sure he liked in and of itself. "You do know that would _hurt_?"

"It's meant to be an intense sensation," Aziraphale said, still looking far too pleased at the idea.

"It's meant to be a punishment, I think."

"It's meant to be the fantasy of being punished," Aziraphale said. "Only in precisely the way that one wants, without any of the untidiness of having actually badly disappointed someone."

"You haven't disappointed me," Crowley said.

"I'm very glad to hear it."

"And I wouldn't want to punish you if you had, I'd just tell you that you were a bastard or something."

"I would normally take that as a compliment, coming from you."

"That would probably be right. But a fantasy's different, isn't it?" Crowley said, slowly feeling his way into the idea. "If I were going to punish you for your wickedness …" This was, for obvious reasons, not something that demons went about doing. It was, in general, something Crowley thought of as an excuse for people to work out their frustrations on other people and feel good about themselves at the same time.

And yet, looking at the expression on Aziraphale's face at the words, what he felt was a deep and urgent craving to … well … to _smite_ him.

"Should I tie you up?" he said.

"Oh, probably, don't you think, for the full effect?" Aziraphale said, in the same tones he would have used to persuade himself that ordering a six-course meal was only sensible. Crowley found this obscurely reassuring.

"With …" he prompted.

Aziraphale's face fell slightly. "I don't have any rope. And I wouldn't start materializing things, of all the times that it's probably best if we go on not being noticed …"

"I think you'll just have to behave yourself," Crowley said.

"I'm certain I can manage that."

A bit later—after an investigation of the contents of Aziraphale's kitchen, an unwanted lesson from Aziraphale on the proper way to peel ginger root, and an instructive lesson through experimentation on exactly how strong the properties of the peeled root were when applied internally—Crowley reminded Aziraphale, "You did say you could behave."

Aziraphale, lying face-down on the bed, made a credible attempt to stop himself from thrusting his hips in convulsive jerks against the eiderdown. He lay still, shuddering like a fly-stung horse, and when Crowley ran a hand over his buttocks, he groaned.

"In a little discomfort?" Crowley asked.

"Just a bit," Aziraphale said hoarsely, and Crowley found himself taking an intense guilty pleasure at the sight of Aziraphale simply _writhing _at the pain while at the same time obviously feverishly aroused. It made him want too many things at one time, to bite Aziraphale's throat or stroke him to soothe his pain away or just _watch_ him, storing up mental images that were definitely going to replay themselves in his head for a long time to come.

He settled for working Aziraphale's hard cock, which made Aziraphale moan in an entirely different tone. "Tell me you've learned your lesson," he said.

"I have, I truly have," Aziraphale said more happily that Crowley could possibly have managed while in obviously intense pain.

"Tell me you deserve this for being wicked," Crowley said.

"I do, I deserve … every bit of this."

"Every bit of it," Crowley said, and worked Aziraphale's cock while Aziraphale thrust helplessly into his hand. There was a moment when the torment on Aziraphale's face transmuted itself very suddenly into pleasure, as if he'd been bathed in cool water, or blazing light. Then Aziraphale groaned as he came, a long and infinitely satisfied sound, and lay there, face down, breathing hard.

Crowley reached down for his own hard cock, and felt that he did, in fact, understand more things about pornography now, and also that he might explode. It didn't take much, just a few hard jerks watching Aziraphale's lazy expression of pleasure as he propped himself up on one elbow, and then the moment when Aziraphale flinched as the ginger shifted was the last straw. He came with a hiss, and retained just enough presence of mind to remember to take the ginger out.

"I won't be able to sit down tomorrow," Aziraphale said, somewhere between complaint and praise.

"You could if you wanted to," Crowley said.

"That wouldn't at all be in the spirit of things," Aziraphale said, sounding like a cat who'd lapped up a saucer of cream.

Crowley felt that it was unfair for him to be the one more disconcerted by this experience. "You liked that, then?"

"It's the intensity of it, I think. And the anticipation. I have had that book for a long time."

"And being punished, for being wicked—"

"The fantasy," Aziraphale said, and maybe that made it all right for both of them.

"So what else is in those books?" Crowley said after a while.

"I absolutely forbid you to read them and find out," Aziraphale said.

"What kind of a world would it be if demons went round doing what they're told?" Crowley said, and sprawled contentedly in Aziraphale's sheets.


End file.
